http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2009/02/greeg_withdraws_as_commerce_no.h tml

At least this one didn't have tax problems!

So, who wants to be Secretary of Commerce? Anyone? Anyone?

Country first? My ass. More like party first.

The Republicans are more worried about losing that Senate seat in 2010 than serving the country today. Just goes to show that even when offered, Republicans have no interest in bipartisanship.

Well in this case, it wasn't the lack of bipartisanship of possibly losing the seat in 2010, than it was that Sen. Gregg strongly disagreed with the President on the stimulus package, and couldn't in his conscience be a part of that administration.

I do have respect for that.

Sorry, but that's an excuse. If that was the case Gregg should have never offered his name up for consideration.

bipartisanship....A word with no meaning.

Group in power uses the word to show they are magnanimous....

Group out of power uses the word when they aren't getting what they want.

Only ones who REALLY want it are the voters who come out on the short end when neither party practices it.

At least this one didn't have tax problems!

"I didn't vote for Obama, but, I'll have to admit he is indeed remarkable. In less than three weeks in office he has single-handedly collected more than $400,000 in back taxes."

Here is the statement the White House just put out on kicking Judd Gregg to the curb, in full:

“Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce. He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President’s agenda. Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama’s key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart”.

Yeah, it was ugly him avoiding the stimulus vote.

Made me wonder. Clearly a lot of people saw that and wondered too.

I wonder how much longer this bipartisan crap is going to last? Obama is getting hammered.

And I agree with Thom Hartmann: if you are going to keep the filibuster in the Senate, force Republicans to actually filibuster. Make them talk 24/7 like in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Make them look foolish for trying to block economic progress.

I'm there 100 percent.

Can't blame him for stepping up and really trying it. Now the time has come to actually just lead. That means putting pressure on Congress, and taking stuff right to the people.

When he does that, it's no contest! Some good stuff is gonna get done.

Harry Reid is a big problem. Growing daily. I'm almost thinking he's another Lieberman, or just a complete and total puss, or has some criminal thing others have leverage on.

Something is wrong there. Democrats won. There are few reasons not to just step up and take the fight right to the Republicans. Maybe if they actually had to do something other than threaten, party unity with them just would not be so easy.

Right now, there's little reason for them NOT to just stand firm and block it all. Reid is letting them do it!

(and I don't get why)

Say we get the 60 or 61. Will it actually matter? I'm beginning to think it won't. Liberman and some other lame ass Dem will just keep the status quo.

If we made them stand up and put their words out there, the game would change up damn quick! Capture that, run a few AD's, wash, rinse, repeat.

There would be some breaking of the ranks, and that's all it would take to get some progressive legislation done.

Heck, at this point, I would settle for just SOME legislation done that isn't tained with back room closed up deals, where it's hard to know who is screwing us.

I wonder how much longer this bipartisan crap is going to last? Obama is getting hammered.

Awwwwwww. If it was the democrats hammering Bush you all would be out in the streets whooping it up.

I see.

So Senator Gregg decides after all that this gig isn't for him and all the libs make a big stink over it.

Where's the big stink or Obama's nominating of all the tax cheats. Ooops. Kinda missed those, huh.

I know lord Obama can't do anything wrong in the eyes of the libs. It's just hilarious to watch how two faced they are.

uhm no I had some nagging concerns over Obama since I read his book the Audacity of Hope. It was a little too vague in substance. Reading his platform points on subjects that mattered to me I ended up voting for him instead of a third party candidate.

Obama should suck it up and tell the Republicans to go **** themselves in the nicest way possible. They are in the minority. He doesnt need them.

The ones who drive me crazy are Harry Reed and Nancy Pelosi. Harry Reed is a spineless worm. Legislation is about passing laws. Speaking about compromise he claimed that was the purpose of the Congress. No. No way.

IF the laws pass and they stand up on their own, the President signs them. They are then the law of the land. If HE screws up, the Supreme Court can overturn the "bad" laws.

I guess I am an idealist and therefore a liberal but that's how it should work...

Actually Skybill, it's not about which party is getting hammered.

It's about getting some legislation that actually helps us ordinary people. Any time anybody is hammering somebody else trying to stop that from happening, it's a good thing!

Just so happens the Republicans are more or less focused against our better interests right now, making them the target.

Obama needs to stop kissing Republican ass and start kicking it.

I believe he will do so when the time is right.

He's just about out of patients.

Obama needs to stop kissing Republican ass and start kicking it.

This is exactly what I wanted; Someone who found compromise. Not just said they would.

Sure, I wish it went smoother - but I'll take it. Democrats didn't get walked on or over - nor did Republicans. This is relatively new to all of us. I'll take it.

Now, the results are still up for debate. But the process worked just fine for me.

I sincerely feel President Obama wants to work with GOP – for all the right reasons. But Washington DC doesn’t work that way anymore. It’s a highly partisan environment and even if you make every effort to reach out, the ideologues call you out. GOP members of Congress are more interested in appeasing Rush Limbaugh than the President of the United States. If Rush Limbaugh wants President Obama to fail, I’m sure that is the sentiment of most ardent GOP ideologues in Congress. And let us not forget the father of GOP ideologues in the US House, Newt Gingrich. Twenty years ago, he’d spend his nights speaking before an empty House chamber speaking on every topic imaginable – for his C-SPAN audience. So this is nothing unexpected. Hell or high water, it’s about ideology.

Absolutely it is!

The Republicans have built up a 30 year nut! If it's cracked, they start from scratch and that takes 20 years or so.

For most existing Republicans, that is unacceptable.

They will fight, manupulate and do what it takes to marginalize any progressive agenda. They will do it because it's highly likely to work, just like it has before.

And just like before, they end up marginalized for a good long time.

..then people forget, buy into it, and we go another cycle.

Since I am along for the ride, I want the driver to signal and ease over before turning. I fear a hard left turn across three lanes, and any oncoming hazard be damned...........

Yeah. And you know what? I consider myself extremely liberal. But I don't want to cause a wreck with my views. I'd rather we just all try and get closer to our destination. One thing that makes me hunker down a little though is when ANY left merge is blown out of proportion; Slippery slopes that aren't real, crys of Socialism that are going to make us Russia, etc.

I'll deal with making right turns with a smile as long as I get it back when we go left too.

Besides, we socialize lots of things!

Works just fine.

For me, that destination is government that works well for ordinary people. We basically have to have government. Rather than fight it, believing it can't work, I would much rather just make it work and deal.

Complexity is not the strong suit of neither Republicans nor conservatives. For them, at the point in the woods where the fork in the road approaches, they freeze. They cling to the well trodden rhetoric handed down to them by their predecessors. They are not the champions of new thought when faced with questions as important as those that we now face. Three conservatives in the Senate got it. The rest are just robot puppets of partisanship until they realize that their party is decimated, having painted themselves into a tight corner when their dream of absolute power in government turned into a nightmare.
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It's mathematics. More exactly, statics and dynamics. The momentum waned under the leadership of Republicans trying to sustain the conservative ideals that created the mess we have. Through outsourcing alone, financial mass was shifted away. No mass, no momentum, regardless of how feverishly they tried to increase velocity through tax breaks. For all its complexity, it's not impossible to understand, unless of course you spend a lot of time with your head in the sand.

Thank The Lord we've passed the lowpoint of inertia.

The Republicans are not greater than gravity. Most of them realize it, but to gain power in that party you have to give up the notion of independent thought. Rush, Sean, Glenn and the dittoheads aren't going away any time soon, so the time has come to clear up the message and reach out to those who still don't understand how the Reagan ideals led us here and in order to get past this point, you have to shed those theories.

A bigger issue is how states will deal with these budget shortfalls. The feds can run huge deficits while most states aren’t able to do so. I cannot for the life me see how the federal government can afford to step in and bankroll these shortfalls. And these shortfalls are massive. Oregon is going to need to make massive cuts both this biennium and the next. Washington is going to be between $7 and $8 billion in the crapper. California is almost $50 billion in the hole. Where the heck is this money going to come from? Or the cuts? This doesn't include cities, counties, public transit agencies, school districts, public health districts, library districts.

We either borrow, print money, or sell stuff, or just go without.

That's basically it. I suppose we could buy stuff that pays us too, but given where we are, I don't see that making a whole lot of sense. It's a sellers market, and we are broke ass and bleeding.

Most conservative ideologues want us to just go without. That's the "drown the government" bit. If there is no money, there can be no social programs, and government is essentially powerless.

Let's keep that one off the table, as most of us are not there.

That leaves printing money, borrowing, or selling things.

Selling things is ugly really. For each thing we sell, we lose the ability to build wealth with it, and it potentially raises our cost of living as the new owner wants to make the most of it.

That's selling toll roads and such. Not good. Selling companies is almost as bad, because their profits go off shore, helping other nations provide their health care, for example.

Printing money isn't a bad idea, GIVEN we realize something of value for doing it. Borrowing isn't a bad idea either, given we do the same thing.

I suspect we are doing both where we can, meaning when we release those dollars, we had better damn well be building stuff or making investments that have some payback, or it's just trying to put out fire with gas.

I'm actually for the printing more than the borrowing, given it's tied to infrastructure and services that employ people and build up things we can use to pay down the greater problem.

Borrowing is a mixed bag right now, given all the financial troubles.

Nothing is really all that good, and that's just the rub.

Boil all that down and it's just work, work, work our asses off to recover our future. I'm up for that! There are a lot of unemployed Americans right now that could be doing stuff! Also, there are a lot of skills and facilities running under-utilized. Both of these things can help us get moving again.

There is something to be said for going without too. Many of us can scale back and spend where it matters and spend local. My family was forced to do this, and it's starting to pay off already!! More people will realize this and that will help things some.

Obama did appoint somebody to verify efficiency too. That's a good move as waste is double expensive right now.

Smart military policy is a huge gain. Anything we can do to cut that huge spending is going to free up dollars we can use to dig ourselves out of this mess. So, fight terror and work on stability and focus on that huge. No BS. Other nations, if they see us do this, will help out more than they are now, and that's good too.

And on the matter of Americans: the more the merrier man! If there are more Americans, then we can do more work, which means paying the crap down, and seeing good times sooner.

I think becoming a citizen right now should be fairly easy. Get 'em working, pay them a decent wage and collect the taxes. We really need it! Tie citizenship to some minor league civic work, and save money while educating them on being American at the same time!

If we follow through on actually building and working to do what is needed to increase our GDP, we will see good times again. In the shorter term, it's scary to spend. But, it's either that, or sink!

Nobody wants to do that, so... let's just do it, and make sure value is realized from it, and it will work out. IMHO, the conservatives either don't see this, or won't because of ideology more than anything.

Should we go down that road, it's a very strong referendum on their core policy and ideological positions they've maintained over 30 years or so. IMHO, it's really selfish to push us farther down a bad road, just because it's simply tough to admit the ideas just were not all that good.

I don’t think though people realize just how draconian the cuts might have to be in order for states and municipalities to balance their budgets. We haven't even scratched the surface. We’ve gone on an extended spending spree for the better part of a generation and it’s come home to roost. In the early 80’s, we cut taxes and we did make cuts to some domestic programs. But we didn’t follow the Reagan model completely – and for good reason. Had we made the cuts he wanted to early on, it would have people in real peril. And Reagan was forced to accept a more moderate approach (if you want to call it that) which included tax cuts but no real control on the spending side (let us not forget Reagan's 400 ship Navy and all the other monies he shifted into the defense side of the things). In order for Reagan’s nightmare to have been fully realized, the cuts in domestic spending would have had to be MASSIVE. And that never happened. They were big, but not MASSIVE. So here we are, with all sorts of obligations but our ability to pay for such obligations are somewhat wobbly and a fiscal policy that has guided federal lawmakers for better part of 30 years which preaches tax cuts without truly restraining spending.

Kind of ironic, the conservatives would routinely call out Sen. Ted Kennedy for his support of progressive taxation -- one of their Clarian calls against liberals and liberalism. But today – and always, it has made sense. Tax enough to pay for your obligations. And in relative terms, those pre-Reagan deficits were not all that bad.

Too, much of the responsibly once shouldered by the feds rests with the states. That was another slight of hand; shift responsibilities to the states to pay for expensive programs that were once the purview of the feds.

If you want Social Security, Medicare, high grade roads and bridges, good schools, safe communities, quality public transit, all that stuff, you’ve got to be willing to pay for it. Plus there are so many areas where we could be so much more efficient, health care being a perfect example.

I agree!

And it's worth pointing out that not only did we do a big spending spree, but we also borrowed to fund Iraq. It's a double whammy!

Higher taxes are coming. I personally don't care, so long as we get the bleeding stopped. What good is a lower tax rate, if we lose all the bennies, and our economy sucks.

...if it sucks enough, then we all will be in the LOW tax bracket.

I say raise the taxes on the rich. Create a new bracket that says anything over $3 million in income is taxed at 65%.

Yep. That's what we did before. It worked too.

How much does a person need, given these times?

I don't think we should necessarily raise the taxes a ton on the top 15 percent or whatever ... some, yes. Be progressive, a la Bill Clinton. And yes, that worked.

What we need to do is cut out the loopholes. Raising their tax percentage paid means nothing if they can still shell out their funds into protected, tax-free forms of income and interest-bearing accounts. Maybe get rid of the capital gains tax for the lower and middle class, and keep it or increase it for the top 15-20 percent. They have so many ways of protecting their money and not paying taxes on it, it's sickening. And it's the rest of us NOT in the top 15-20% income wise that have to pick up the slack.

Yeah, that's a great point. Perhaps the existing structure works, if the tax is actually being paid.

It’s funny watching all these GOP members of Congress suddenly bitten by the "fiscally responsible" bug. I wonder where they were hiding when George W. Bush was President?

They were walking lockstep with Little Hitler(Bush).

I say raise the taxes on the rich. Create a new bracket that says anything over $3 million in income is taxed at 65%.

Why?

Give me real justification why they should pay more than anyone else.

Not just "Because they make more". That crap won't fly.

Yes, they should pay their fair share, but because they are prosperous why should they pay more?

It doesn't cost any more for a cop to write them a ticket than it does a middle income person, nor does it cost any more for an ambulance to haul them to the hospital than a middle income person. If their house catches fire, it doesn't cost any more to send the fire department to their house than it would to yours or mine.

When they drive on the road, it doesn't wear the road out any faster than when you or I drive on it.

I want REAL reasons why they should pay more in taxes, not just liberal, socialist reasons.

Justify it.


How much does a person need, given these times?

That has NOTHING to do with it. Besides, who would decide how much someone "needs". I sure as F don't want the government deciding how much I "need". (Sounds kind of like communism to me)

They need as much as they can make. If they have a job that pays them an outrageous salary and they aren't taking it from bailout money or doing something illegal, I say more power to them.

Why are the libs so afraid (or is it against) anyone making a lot of money?

This is America. Work hard and earn as much money as you can. If you are rich, good for you.

Skybill: I say raise the taxes on the rich. Create a new bracket that says anything over $3 million in income is taxed at 65%.

Why?

Give me real justification why they should pay more than anyone else.

Because they in particular made out like bandits the last 20 years? They have consistently had their taxes cut again and again - with Clinton's 1993 hike (rescinded by Bush) being the exception. Explain to me for example why the dividend tax rate is only 15%? Warren Buffet has asked numerous times why his tax rate is so much lower than his secretary's?

How about doubling the tax on dividends after the first $100K of dividend income? That would exclude retirees living solely on dividends.

We are in dire times now. Someone has to pay to keep the lights on. People in the middle and near the bottom who have seen their 401Ks vanish while losing income at work (bonues probably vanishing in much of America) or maybe losing their jobs can't afford it. Who else?

The latest wave of unimpeded greed is over in America, and you can see where it led us. Who profited the greatest during that era? The people at the top. And if they are still profiting today, they should pay more.

The rich with non-horse riding cowboy George W Bush at the helm F-ed us all up. I say, tax the hell out of the rich now to fix the country they broke.


And you whining conseratives can just move to . . . uh, nowhere, heh. No other country on this planet is going to let you f-ers shit on a country like we let you do here. You're trolls now. Go away.

"Why?

Give me real justification why they should pay more than anyone else."

Because government needs the money and they can afford it. That's why.

Well I sure don't disagree with Andrew. In fact, I think that is a very solid justification in and of itself. Those people made out big with BAD Republican policy. They got their profits at our expense. And that expense was our jobs, our future, our infrastructure, and many other things.

These same people want to continue that path; namely, over exploiting us to make even more profit for themselves. Sorry, but if there is that much flowing to the top, while people are struggling to make ends meet, there is a problem.

That needs to be fixed.

I would add, they as individuals don't consume any more than any other individual. However, if they are making that kind of money, they are using the infrastructure, courts, etc... more than an individual does.

That stuff, they are using to make those dollars, wouldn't be there without a progressive tax system.

It was built with one. Paid EVERYBODY off nicely too, I might add.

That's my justification. Frankly, if I'm pulling down that kind of smack, having to pay some tax on it is a WONDERFUL problem to have!

So Skybill, planning on getting rich? Hoping that the getting is still good when you get there? LOL!!

That is generally the answer people give for defending the rabid over exploitation going on.

I was speaking to that when I said, "how much does one person need?"

You see, I could care less how much people make. That's the beauty of the system. It's completely possible to pull down the millions, and pay the taxes that make sense, and pay people an amount that makes sense.

When that is happening, the more the merrier. When it isn't happening, and those people are still bitching, I've a beef with that. Most people do, because most of us are ordinary people, who expect to also work hard and make as much as we can.

That isn't all that possible right now, and the kind of economic policy the upper 5 percent support is a really big part of that.

You see, I could care less how much people make. That's the beauty of the system. It's completely possible to pull down the millions, and pay the taxes that make sense...

I don't have any problem with that.

What I have a problem with is people saying that just because they are rich, they should have a heavier tax burden.

Their fair share...Yes. No more though.

Because government needs the money and they can afford it. That's why.

THAT is the DUMBEST reason I've ever heard.

How about if you live in a big house you should pay 2 or 3 times the KW/H rate of someone living in a smaller house? Because you can afford it.

Or because you are overweight, the Big Mac you are buying is $10 instead of the regular price?

So Skybill, planning on getting rich?

Not unless I win the lottery! (An I think the lottery is a tax on people who are bad in math!)

Would I like to be rich, sure. Do I expect to be, nope.

Skybill: Their fair share...Yes. No more though.

No one disagrees with that. What they disagree on is what "fair share" means. As was said above, some people profit more form the use of our infrastructure, our military that keeps the ports open to American products around the world, our public safety organizations, etc. Shouldn't the people who benefit more pay more?

I have no problem with a class system, where more successful people have a higher standard of living than less successful people. But, those people who are able to be more successful in our country should also pay more when their resources are required. And it seems that after the trillions spent on the Iraq war and these required ballouts to keep our economy afloat, their tax rate should be higher. It's not that I think they should pay more because "they can afford it," but because others at the bottom can't afford it.

I look at our progressive tax system not as one where people at the top get gouged the more they make but as a flat tax system where the people at the bottom get discounts the less they make, the less their ability to afford to pay.

It should be the aspiration of every American to pay as much taxes as possible. The more tax you pay, the more money you make.